Knowledge Capitalization Research Articles

Experience feedback for risk assessment in aeronautic buildings

The search for energy efficiency is an increasingly important requirement in the construction or renovation of residential, tertiary and commercial buildings. This requirement imposes the implementation of effective strategies for evaluating energetic performances. However, most of the literature works focused on the use of analytical approaches which sometimes proves insufficient, in the absence of taking into account the practical realities. This paper presents a methodology of risk analysis and assessment for efficient performance of buildings using the knowledge capitalization and exploitation from experience feedback processes. The target buildings (residential, tertiary and commercial) are chosen in the airport area of aeronautic context in which the lessons learnt are generated from the environmental assessment with the assistance of the main domain actors (experts, technicians and users). The effort is focused on identification of non-qualities and discomforts whose resolution could contribute to improving the energy and environmental performance of buildings. This approach integrates the collection of experienced knowledge from passive design strategies of sustainable buildings with innovative practices. Capitalization of knowledge from experience feedback processes will foster the development of proposals for preventive and corrective solutions and dissemination of good practices for solving problems regarding pathologies, damage, and other dysfunctions observed in the building field.

The productivity of knowledge mobilisation, knowledge capitalisation and product-related firm transmutation: exploring the case of small-scale garment-makers in Nairobi, Kenya

Highlighting the limitations of R&D, this paper champions design activity as the phenomenon that captures knowledge mobilisation at the firm level, especially amongst small firms in developing countries. Still, knowledge becomes a capital (factor input) proper when employed in production. Volumes of new products sold could suggest the market value of utilised knowledge capital the same way the resale value of plant and equipment often approximates the stock of physical capital. Conversely, shares of sales of new products arguably capture an altogether different phenomenon: product-related firm transmutation. Findings suggest that the deeper utilisation of knowledge has significant productivity effects and supersedes mere mobilisation of knowledge. Further, undergoing transmutation towards the production of more of new products relative to incumbent products has no significant relationship with labour productivity. Firms should therefore prioritise the deeper exploitation of given new knowledge rather than potentially prodigal shifts in production towards new products as such.

Innovation Lodestar: The entrepreneurial university in a stellar knowledge firmament

This article analyzes the stages and phases of development of the entrepreneurial university, incorporating the classic Humboldtian dualistic academic model that unites teaching and research, into a Triple Helix of university–industry–government interactions. The MIT and Stanford cases provide empirical data for the extrapolation of a knowledge-based regional development model that has become increasingly widespread in the US and globally. The societal implications of the dialectic between the ‘capitalization of knowledge’ and the ‘cogitization of capital’ are explored, in conclusion.

SMEs' Innovation and Export Capabilities: Identification and Characterization of a Common Space Using Data Spatialization

Numerous publications try to identify and test empirically the link between innovation and export to explain firms’ competitiveness. But it seems that several ways of thinking coexist, without a real consensus. This article proposes a different approach, by considering innovation and export not in terms of impact of the one on the other, but rather as two complementary activities mobilizing common capabilities (resources, skills, knowledge). These common capabilities represent the capabilities that a company needs to mobilize as a priority to improve its performance regarding innovation as well as export. This article aims to identify the common spaces between innovation and export in terms of current practices within SMEs. Initially, the innovation and export practices were identified in the literature and through a set of interviews with business managers. Then an analysis of similarity put forward the common practices between the innovation and export processes. A data spatialization shows that the common practices concern at least: (1) network management, (2) consideration of the customer, (3) the acquisition of information, (4) skills management, (5) the capitalization of knowledge, (6) the global strategy, (7) the follow-up of the projects, (8) the intellectual property, and finally (9) the corporate culture.

Global Society and Integration: To what Extent Is the Triple-Helix-Model of Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff of Use for the Implementation of Smart Governance? – An Analysis Referring on Implemented Triple Helix-Constellations

The Triple Helix Model, established by Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, is a model, which copes with different forms of university – industry – government interaction. It reacts on the rising uncertainty and ignorance in society, which are results of the developments towards a knowledge society. The defined organisational frameworks they illustrate, shall be evaluated with regards to their usability in the context of Smart Governance – a type of governance, which demands new, intelligent democratic structures as a foundation for a new way of governing society. Triple Helix constellations in the nanotechnological industry and in the context of different forms of security in society show that these structures are a useful instrument to generate intelligent solutions on certain societal problems. With regard to Smart Governance, Triple Helices are able to increase the intelligence of democratic structures and parts of their processes. In contrast, they lack influence on metarules. The capitalisation of knowledge is an influencing factor, which prevents a more general implementation of Triple-Helices.

Adast: Intelligent support of decision making to improve security analysis. Application to railroad accidents

This paper presents an intelligent support of decision making to improve security analysis called Adast. The adopted approach in this research is based on acquiring and reusing past accident scenarii, historically validated on other homologated transport systems. The advantage of this approach, based primarily on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) and ontologies, lies not only on the capitalization of knowledge from experience feedback, but also on benefit in order to provide assistance to domain experts in their crucial task of analyzing and improving security. Also, the problems of knowledge and case representation are considered in this paper. A prototype of intelligent decision support system based on Adast has been implemented to better integrate the proposed CBR cycle and ontology.

Integrating Agents into a Collaborative Knowledge-based System for Business Rules Consistency Management

Capitalization and reuse of expert knowledge are very important for the survival of an enterprise. This paper presents a collaborative approach that utilizes domain ontology and agents. Thanks to our knowledge formalizing process, we give to domain expert an opportunity to store different forms of retrieved knowledge from experiences, design rules, business rules, decision processes, etc. The ontology is built to support business rules management. The global architecture is mainly composed of agents such as Expert agent, Evaluator agent, Translator agent, Security agent and Supervisor agent. The Evaluator agent is at the heart of our functional architecture, its role is to detect the problems that may arise in the consistency management module and provides a solution to these problems in order to validate the accuracy of business rules. In addition, a Security agent is defined to handle both security aspects in rules modeling and multi-agent system. The proposed approach is different from the others in terms of the number of rule’s inconsistencies which are detected and treated like contradiction, redundancy, invalid rules, domain violation and rules never applicable, the collaboration that is initiated among business experts and the guarantee of security of the business rules and all the agents which constitute our system. The developed collaborative system is applied in an industrial case study.C

The Three-Five-Eight (Bachelor, Master, Doctorate) System: An Essential and Demanding Reform for the University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin (West Africa)

Nowadays, universities are undergoing profound changes in order to adapt their educational contents to the requirements of the world of employment. Thus, the establishment of a new system of certification and classification of qualifications has emerged through the Bachelor, Master, Doctorate called “Licence Master and Doctorat” (LMD) reform in French speaking countries. This research aims to show that the implementation of the LMD system is an imperative for the University of Abomey-Calavi. On the methodological side, we conducted both descriptive and analytical study based on the principle of triangulation. The data used for this study come from two main tools: survey questionnaire and interviews grid supported by literature review. This research was conducted on a sample of 690 individuals selected by random and purposive method. It came out from our investigations that LMD system relies on fundamental principles that are not yet mastered and applied by the different actors of the University of Abomey-Calavi. Consequently, 65.33% expressed their qualifications are not recognized as such in other universities or countries. Our results also indicate that 73.39% of the students have not received information about the possibility offered by the LMD system to complete their education within the same institution or another institution through principle of mobility. Students surveyed on the question of capitalization of knowledge through transferable and capitalized education credits recognized in a proportion of 59.82% they have no information on this vital principle of the LMD reform. Thus, it is important to rethink the system, reframe and adapt its principles and requirements to local realities.

Towards a Novel Approach for Enterprise Knowledge Capitalization Utilizing an Ontology and Collaborative Decision-Making

In this paper, the authors describe the development of a Decision Support System (DSS) in the spunlace nonwoven production industry. The suggested DSS utilizes domain ontology and a collaborative platform that allows operators to share and exchange experiences in the industrial diagnosis in order to have new ideas and useful information for collaborative decision-making. One of the main aspects addressed in the decision-making process was the knowledge management of the most frequently breakdowns of machines as the card, aquajet etc. This paper introduces the architecture of the system, including several modules such as, Reasoning engine and Similarity module, etc. The decision-making is reinforced by a case-based reasoning to recommend solutions where previously solved cases (problem) are compared to recently encountered ones using the same ontology to define similarity between cases. Some experiments have been conducted in INOTIS enterprise to indicate the efficiency of the proposed system.

Instrument for the Visualization and Evaluation of the Intellectual Property Assets in the Knowledge Based Economy

Abstract The intellectual property is a concept of whose content and materialization find themselves more and more in the attention of the researchers and practitioners. The increased number of the works that approach such an issue is the argument that supports the previous affirmation. The intellectual property assets attract the interest of all the organizations from the local to the global level. The important pillars of the European Strategy 2020 formulated by the European Commission are based on the capitalization of the innovation knowledge and of the intellectual property. The increased interest towards innovation and intangible assets is given to the awareness of their economic potential. This is the reason why the evaluation and the valuation of the intellectual property capitalization propose an evaluation methodology unanimously accepted. The aim of this article is to present a visualization and evaluation instrument for the intellectual property assets, realized in a framework of a European research project with 15 partners from countries that are situated in the South Eastern Europe.

Introducing the open-source mfront code generator: Application to mechanical behaviours and material knowledge management within the PLEIADES fuel element modelling platform

The PLEIADES software environment is devoted to the thermomechanical simulation of nuclear fuel elements behaviour under irradiation. This platform is co-developed in the framework of a research cooperative program between Électricité de France (EDF), AREVA and the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). As many thermomechanical solvers are used within the platform, one of the PLEAIADES’s main challenge is to propose a unified software environment for capitalisation of material knowledge coming from research and development programs on various nuclear systems.This paper introduces a tool called mfront which is basically a code generator based on C++ (Stroustrup and Eberhardt, 2004). Domain specific languages are provided which were designed to simplify the implementations of new material properties, mechanical behaviours and simple material models. mfront was recently released under the GPL open-source licence and is available on its web site: http://tfel.sourceforge.net/.The authors hope that it will prove useful for researchers and engineers, in particular in the field of solid mechanics. mfront interfaces generate code specific to each solver and language considered.In this paper, after a general overview of mfront functionalities, a particular focus is made on mechanical behaviours which are by essence more complex and may have significant impact on the numerical performances of mechanical simulations. mfront users can describe all kinds of mechanical phenomena, such as viscoplasticity, plasticity and damage, for various types of mechanical behaviour (small strain or finite strain behaviour, cohesive zone models). Performance benchmarks, performed using the Code_Aster finite element solver, show that the code generated using mfront is in most cases on par or better than the behaviour implementations written in fortran natively available in this solver. The material knowledge management strategy that was set up within the PLEIADES platform is briefly discussed. A material database named sirius proposes a rigorous material verification workflow.We illustrate the use of mfront through two case of studies: a simple FFC single crystal viscoplastic behaviour and the implementation of a recent behaviour for the fuel material which describes various phenomena: fuel cracking, plasticity and viscoplasticity.

Industrial Knowledge assessment for capitalization purposes via learning techniques

2 Abstract: Capitalization of industrial knowledge is an important issue for enterprises who want to master the development and the innovative part of their product. Of course, there are many knowledge extraction methods, but they involve an expertise work by KM experts. Besides this, it is necessary to evaluate both knowledge and knowledge use. In this paper, we present an approach to evaluate this knowledge use with a Serious Game (SG). From an identification methodology based on an analysis under a PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) deployment, we experienced a SG platform for minimize the reluctance of actors and validate the identification work of KM experts. Based on serious game first, we extend our approach to a SPOC (Small Private Online Course).

The Triple Helix Approach for the Creation of a Knowledge Society

In the present society, we are experiencing a convergence and crossing-over of three worlds which were previously separated: public research, business and governments; this convergence is represented by the Triple Helix model. It refers to a spiral model of innovation that captures multiple reciprocal relationships among institutional settings (public, private and academic) at different stages in the capitalization of knowledge. This paper presents a good practice of “The International Council for Caring Communities” (ICCC) that, in our opinion, represents a Triple Helix approach in action. ICCC in fact, since 1995 has been addressing social and economic issues with a method based on the cooperation efforts of non-traditional groups of decision makers and experts from government, international organizations, local authorities, the private sector, academia, health organizations and related industries.

The key to carving out a high corporate reputation based on innovation: corporate social responsibility

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to analyze how corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects a firm’s value added. Specifically, through a combination of Stakeholder Theory and specific concept within the Innovation Theory framework (called Social Innovation Capital), this work explores the relation between effective stakeholder management and how marketable innovation production affects a company’s possibility of achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. By doing so, new insights on CSR management to gain competitive advantage are provided.Design/methodology/approach– The present study analyzes the role of a firm’s international presence, and the company’s social commitment initiatives as drivers of the enterprise’s corporate intangible assets. A company’s reputation has also been considered as a control variable. To achieve this goal, the Spanish market was analyzed. Specifically, those Spanish companies who had the highest reputation in the global reputation pulse and showed the highest level of brand awareness, according to the latest report published by the Forum of Leading Spanish Brands, were considered.Findings– Findings show that companies including their stakeholders’ interests in the knowledge-creation and innovation process are able to enhance their intangible assets and thus the capitalization of such knowledge. Similarly, firms with international presence have a large number of global stakeholders, which also evidences a positive relation with its intangible assets. By honoring the social contract, firms benefit from stakeholders while contributing to social welfare, creating a win–win situation.Originality/value– This study categorizes how intangible assets can be increased through stakeholder’s involvement and firm’s international presence. Consequently, researchers studying business strategy can incorporate these variables as key elements in strategic planning. Scholars in fields of information systems, operations management, knowledge or supply chain management can also evaluate the inclusion of corporate social responsibility into their studies to evaluate how it reflects on tangible assets, production process, supply chain management or the knowledge production life cycle. Moreover, this work illustrates the convenience of using Innovation Theory in conjunction with the Stakeholder Theory to analyze a firm’s intangible assets enhancement.

An Insight in Perspective about the Capitalization of Knowledge in Software Engineering

An Insight in Perspective about the Capitalization of Knowledge in Software Engineering

An Approach of Support Innovation Guided by Knowledge Capitalization: Application on FERTIAL

In the context current industrial, the companies consider the knowledge as an important resource and strategic for innovation. For it, a good understanding of intellectual patrimony of the company and its environment promotes the emergence of the new ideas. In this paper, we present a new approach to support innovation which builds on the one hand, on the critical knowledge mapping, respecting the principle of the method MASK, and on the other hand on the exploitation of these capitalized knowledge (mapped) for innovate the production processes using the method TRIZ.

Experienced knowledge for the description of maintenance packages

The presented work is included in the research theme that specifies some means of capitalization and exploitation of knowledge from experience feedback processes in the context of industrial maintenance management. Our research on it is a more precise definition of the proposed project, built with a problem asking how to handle the management of repair packages. Upstream, the knowledge of various experts are materialized in the form of expert reports. Downstream maintenance wants to quickly repair products based on symptoms or change parts in advance. For this, we propose a methodology by analysing the feedback to improve the response time for maintenance services. This is implemented in the context of a manufacturing traction motors for the railway industry.

L�information brevet au service de l�industrie p�troli�re: Cas de conception et optimisation des tr�pans par ing�nierie invers�e

The aim of this paper is to show the results of a study originally conducted for an Algerian State-Owned Company ENSP (Manufacturing Branch / formerly ALDIM) specialized in drill bits manufacturing. We show innovation opportunities offered by the use of reverse engineering assisted by patent information in the oil industry. This applied research, mainly based on the useful and actionable information, is crowned by the implementation of a dynamic and evolving process of drilling tools production and based on a continuous process of practical learning. We outline the cognitive processes for knowledge capitalization during the technical process of reverse engineering and the contribution of patent information in a technology development survey, identifying promising valuable technologies in the field of drill bits design and manufacturing. We conclude with tangible results by exposing performance obtained by a drill bit manufactured by ENSP (formerly ALDIM) according to the process described in this paper, while drilling an oil well in the region of Hassi Berkine (Algeria).

Industrial system knowledge formalization to aid decision making in maintenance strategies assessment

High competitiveness and the emergence of new Information and Communication Technologies in industrial enterprises require a higher understanding and mastering of their operation systems to improve expected performances. In that sense, managers should take decisions about the strategies to be implemented as well as the resources to be used to achieve the target performances. Decisions result either from subjective considerations either from models allowing performances assessment. To help managers in the decision making process, it is necessary to represent industrial systems by means of models to better control them. However, this task underlines two major issues. The first one deals with the development of these models which is time and money consuming for the enterprises. This issue leads the consideration of formalizing generic knowledge by means, for example, of generic patterns, as a relevant solution to support models capitalization. The second issue deals with the degree of confidence of the models regarding to the reality of the industrial systems in order to avoid unrealistic assumptions, decreasing complexity etc. To face these challenges, this paper presents a methodology to represent, in a generic way, the key concepts of an industrial system and the relationships between the concepts materialized by semantic rules. More precisely, this methodology is investigated in the domain of dependability in order to assess performances, from the concepts formalization of both the production system and the maintenance one, based on the maintenance strategies applied. Thus generic patterns are cogent to support knowledge capitalization and reuse for leading to Components Off The Shelf (COTS). Patterns are built on a Probabilistic Relational Model (PRM) and can be instantiated then assembled to form a global model of a specific industrial system. The global model allows simulation step for maintenance strategies assessment helping the decision making process. The feasibility and added-value of this methodology, mainly in terms of patterns capitalization and reuse, are shown on two case studies: a pumping system and a real harvest production system. Moreover, lessons-learned issued from these applications are discussed.

Tourist Destination Marketing Supported by Electronic Capitalization of Knowledge

Marketing for tourist destinations, either as strategic planning or as short-term marketing-mix specification, has a lot to gain from computerized information tools. In this paper, we present knowledge engineering methods for the extraction and modeling of findings from market surveys and data analytics in the form of reusable and sharable knowledge. In contrast to information-based systems which are able to store and provide high quality information but their user relies on his own interpretation and decision abilities, we focus on a knowledge-based approach where data analysis and reasoning are consolidated and the system is thus able to provide solutions to common marketing problems. Data analysis methods suitable for discovering factors, associations, clusters and in general hidden patterns that explain a market phenomenon or customer behavior, are applied on multiple surveys related to tourist destination marketing. In addition, a computerized knowledge management process, utilizing ontologies and a rule-based inference engine, is developed to capitalize the extracted knowledge and offer it to support marketing planning problems. Preliminary results are presented on capturing the image of Thessaloniki as tourist destination and suggesting important factors for improving its promotion to individual visitor groups.